Redesigning systems to give power to the people

This commitment is reflected in IOSH’s wide-ranging activity across research, advocacy and practice. In this context, Dr Ivan Williams Jimenez, former Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager at IOSH, shares insight into the organisation’s work and priorities.

A special moment took shape in late-February this year when IOSH brought key influencers together from the worlds of health and safety, occupational health and employment policy, at the House of Commons, in Westminster. They were all there to focus on how a prevention and people-first approach can help overcome the issue of economic inactivity and “keep Britain working.”

One of the keynote speakers, Sir Charlie Mayfield, who is chairing the Government’s Keep Britain Working Review, embodied a strong spirit of collective willingness and enthusiasm in the room to create a workplace that truly values the health, safety and wellbeing of its workforce. This optimism has been born out since with the news that 150 employers have signed up to join the vanguard group supporting the Review (thereby doubling the amount in only three months).

This was a particularly high-profile example of the way IOSH actively engages with policy makers, regulators and standard-setting bodies to ensure that worker health, safety and wellbeing are recognised as key indicators of social value.

An increase in stress and poor mental health causing 300,000 people in the UK alone to leave work each year, has created a pressing problem for the workforce and for the economy. We need to ensure workers are heard, supported and empowered to stay in, or return to, work. Prevention has to be put centre stage and person-centred practice allowed to deliver a healthier workforce and a stronger economy. This would be good for workers, for employers, the economy and society.

Regulation

A less visible way in which IOSH has been advocating this person-centred approach is our recent work responding to the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consultation on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings and the FCA’s proposed new approach to regulation.

As IOSH’s recent white paper Sustainability stalled underscores, the social dimension of ESG is too often overlooked or deprioritised.

Occupational safety and health needs to be seen and understood as a strategic enabler of resilience, productivity and long‑term value creation. Yet, while the FCA proposals look to improve transparency, reliability and trust in ESG ratings, especially for investors, the broader political and regulatory landscape of the UK presents little appetite for deep structural reform – particularly when touching on weighty social issues such as responsible business conduct, mandatory human rights, environmental due diligence and supply-chain accountability.

This lack of appetite and softening of ambition from the current government risks undermining the reliability and credibility of ESG ratings and the quality of sustainability data available to investors. Weakening mandatory reporting frameworks leads to inconsistent disclosure, reduced comparability and greater reliance on voluntary information.

Stronger reporting

IOSH calls on the UK to act to improve corporate accountability by strengthening reporting on human and social capital, including OSH, and align with evolving ESG and European Union non-financial disclosure requirements. For nearly 15 years, IOSH has been one of the few professional bodies to have consistently called for the structural reforms needed to fix an ESG reporting landscape that has become fragmented and unnecessarily complex. The current system creates confusion for organisations and obscures what truly matters for workers, investors and society.

The, frankly, shameful fact is that current UK practices often fail to identify and manage sustainability risks such as modern slavery, unsafe working conditions and labour rights violations. Collectively, these gaps mean that even with improved ESG ratings, regulation and the underlying corporate data (especially on social issues) will remain inconsistent and largely voluntary.

While the FCA is showing its commitment to improving transparency, the robustness of monitoring will depend on future funding, political support and the regulator’s willingness to challenge major global providers. IOSH encourages the FCA to work closely with international regulators to promote alignment and reduce regulatory arbitrage.

This FCA consultation marks a significant step towards building transparency and trust in the ESG ratings market. But the UK’s broader reluctance to adopt stronger ESG-related legislation – particularly around social issues – will put a ceiling on what the new regime can achieve. The UK needs a more structured, mandatory approach to social and OSH reporting.